There’s a plan to save an endangered bird species from extinction that includes tiny solar backpacks. It would be utterly adorable if it wasn’t so heartbreaking.
The bird is known as the ‘plains wanderers’. As one would assume, they got their name from wandering some plains. Plains wanderers are small, fawn-coloured, ground-dwelling birds with speckled throats that live in the semi-arid grasslands of north-western Victoria and the New South Wales Riverina.
Plains wanderers are a small, ground-dwelling bird that is particularly vulnerable to threats such as foxes and feral cats, and native grassland habitat loss. They’re a critical part of the ecosystem because their presence or absence is an indicator of the health of their native habitat.
Sadly, there are only between 500 and 1,000 plains wanderers left in the wild. The Australian government declared the plains wanderer critically endangered in 2015.
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But there’s a plan to help the plains wanderers get back their strength. Brought to our attention by The Guardian, the plan to attempt to save the ground-dwelling birds includes tiny solar-powered backpacks.
Over a dozen plains wanderers have been released into Oolambeyan national park in the NSW Riverina region They are all wearing one of these solar-powered backpacks that allow the plains wanderers to be tracked by satellite. Tracking of released birds has previously been limited by a 12-week backpack battery life, and they could only be tracked with transmitters in the field. This batch will last up to two years.
The second NSW release comes after 10 birds were released near Hay in March, and 16 in Victoria in 2021 as part of a national recovery program to save the species from extinction.
This is the first ever plains-wanderer release to use satellite technology to track the endangered species and the more we know about this elusive bird, the better chance we have at conservation success.
The release of the birds is part of the NSW government’s Saving our Species program, which is backed by a $175 million commitment over 10 years.